Tuesday, 18 February 2014

by Bill Briggs

During
each shift at her drive-through window, once an hour, Cordelia Cordova
sees people rolling joints in their cars. Some blow smoke in her face
and smile.
Cordova, who lost a 23-year-old niece and her
1-month-old son to a driver who admitted he smoked pot that day, never
smiles back. She thinks legal marijuana in Colorado, where she works, is
making the problem of drugged driving worse — and now new research
supports her claim.

"Nobody hides it anymore when driving,"
Cordova said. "They think it's a joke because it’s legal. Nobody will
take this seriously until somebody loses another loved one."

As
medical marijuana sales expanded into 20 states, legal weed was detected
in the bodies of dead drivers three times more often during 2010 when
compared to those who died behind the wheel in 1999, according to a new
study from Columbia University published in the American Journal of Epidemiology .

“The
trend suggests that marijuana is playing an increased role in fatal
crashes,” said Dr. Guohua Li, a co-author and director of the Center for
Injury Epidemiology and Prevention at Columbia University Medical
Center. The researchers examined data from the federal Fatality Analysis
Reporting System (FARS), spanning more than 23,000 drivers killed
during that 11-year period.

Alcohol remains, by far, the most
common mind-altering substance detected in dead drivers, observed in the
blood of nearly 40 percent of those who perished across six states
during 2010, the Columbia study notes. (That rate remained stable
between 1999 and 2010.)
Cannabinol, a remnant of marijuana, was
found in 12.2 percent of those deceased drivers during 2010, (up from
4.2 percent in 1999). Pot was the most common non-alcoholic drug
detected by those toxicology screenings.

“The increased
availability of marijuana and increased acceptance of marijuana use” are
fueling the higher rate of cannabinol found in dead drivers, Li told
NBC News.
Researchers limited their analysis to California and
five others states where toxicology screenings are routinely conducted
within an hour of a traffic death. They note that California allowed
medical marijuana in 2004. Since then, California has posted “marked
increases in driver fatalities testing positive for marijuana,” Li said.

"The number of deaths will grow," Cordova said. "I'm scared."

Minutes
after the crash that killed Cordova's niece, Tanya Guevara, and
Guevara's 5-week-old son, police arrested the driver who struck
Guevara's car. Steven Ryan, then 22, admitted to smoking pot earlier
that day, according to court records. Ryan later pleaded guilty to
vehicular homicide and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2012.

That
same year, Cordova testified before Colorado lawmakers about a proposed
impairment limit for stoned drivers. Under Colorado law today, drivers
who test positive for 5 nanograms per milliliter of THC — an active
ingredient in marijuana — can be charged and punished as drunk drivers.

That
law has not, however, led Howard Myers to feel safer on local roads.
He, too, takes the issue personally: In 2002, his three children were
seriously injured when their car was struck by a driver who, Myers said,
had smoked marijuana a short time earlier. (A police record provided by
Myers showed that oncoming driver was charged with vehicular assault).
Myers' children were returning from school to their home near Colorado
Springs.
All three now are adults and their injuries have become
chronic, Myers said. His daughter, who was driving, receives physical
therapy for neck and back pain. One of his sons is recovering from a
traumatic brain injury. Another son had a leg partially amputated.

"The attitude here is it's safe," Myers said. "So more people are driving under the influence.”
But
marijuana can be detected in the blood for one week after consumption,
perhaps leading chronic consumers to be wrongly arrested, critics of the
law assert.

A separate study — also based on FARS data — found
that in states where medical marijuana was approved, traffic fatalities
decrease by as much as 11 percent during the first year after
legalization. Written by researchers at the University of Colorado,
Oregon and Montana State University, the paper was published in 2013 in the Journal of Law & Economics.

Those
authors theorized pot, for some, becomes a substitute for alcohol. They
cited a recent, 13-percent drop in drunk-driving deaths in states where
medical marijuana is legal.
“Marijuana reform is associated with …
a decrease in traffic fatalities, most likely due to its impact on
alcohol consumption,” said Michael Elliott, executive director of the
Marijuana Industry Group, a trade association in Colorado.